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11th September 2015
London rents are the least affordable in Europe with the average Londoner having to spend almost 80% of their monthly salary to rent a one-bedroom flat in the city centre, according to new research from JLL Residential Research. Labour’s Tessa Jowell commented, who has lost out to Sadiq Khan in the contest to become the party’s candidate in the 2016 mayoral election, said: "Londoners need real action to tackle a housing crisis that has made our city the most unaffordable place to live in Europe".
Evening Standard (10/09/2015)
4th September 2015
The number of homes being sold in England and Wales has fallen significantly, according to figures from the Land Registry. In May this year, there were 65,619 transactions in total, a 15% fall on the same month in 2014. However, prices in some property hotspots are still rising by up to 13% a year, due to lack of supply, with prices in London, South East and East England rising at close to double the rate of the country as a whole. Prices in the east were up 8.9% on the year, followed by London at 8.3% and the South East at 8.2% but elsewhere price increases remain muted.
4th September 2015
The average cost of a home close to a London park or common is three times the typical price of a property elsewhere in the capital. A four-bedroom house with a view of the park in central London will cost 26.9% (£1,138,200) more than its street-locked equivalent, according to new research by Savills. Sophie Chick, a researcher at Savills, says: "The highest premium is in the north because so many people buy family homes there. In the south-west there are a lot of commons and more potential for price growth."
The Daily Telegraph
4th September 2015
The Vauxhall Nine Elms Battersea development is planned to become the next upmarket central London quarter. Attached to the project are other developments, which together include the rehousing of the US embassy, food markets, luxury hotels and upmarket apartments, with designs from Norman Foster, Frank Gehry and Donatella Versace. Deborah Orr hopes in The Guardian that the character of the area will not be sterilised.
The Guardian
4th September 2015
Croydon is on its way to becoming the next London hotspot, as £5bn is being invested in the area over the next five years. One of the main developments is Boxpark, which includes shops, restaurants and bars in 80 recycled shipping containers, and an event space for 2,000 people, and is set to open next year. The area is also becoming increasingly attractive to tech start-ups.
Evening Standard
4th September 2015
David Lammy, one of Labour’s London mayoral candidates, has revealed his plans to address the housing crisis in the capital, including the building of 30,000 homes on public land and creating a new type of tenure in the UK housing market. The homes, which he said would be available for as little as £150,000, could only ever be sold to first-time buyers and would be sold with conditions on the leasehold intended to stop the price rising in line with normal London house price inflation. The buyers would be able to sell for up to 10% above cost price, but only after having lived in the home for a long time.
The Guardian